Part One: Animal Rights By Tom Regan

Read Tom Regan's elaborate defence in The Case for Animal Rights

Regan argues that: 

 The Basic Moral Mistake To View Animals as Resources 

The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us — to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this view of animals — as our resources — the rest is as predictable as it is regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or another, what harms them really doesn't matter — or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal escallop, for example.

Animals, like Children and Retarded Persons, Are Intrinsically Valuable 

And yet it seems reasonably certain that, were we to torture a young child or a retarded elder, we would be doing something that wronged him or her,not something that would be wrong if (and only if) other humans with a sense of justice were upset. And since this is true in the case of these humans we cannot rationally deny the same in the case of animals.

Animals Are Subjects of A Life: Their Intrinsic Value Comes From Conscious Life Equal to Human 

We want and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life, including our pleasure and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death — all make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same is true of those animals that concern us (the ones who are eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.

Shall we say that only humans have the requisite intelligence, or autonomy, or reason? But there are many, many humans who fail to meet these standards and yet are reasonably viewed as having value above and beyond their usefulness to others. Shall we claim that only humans belong to the right species,the species Homo sapiens? But this is blatant speciesism.

What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than animals? Their lack of reason, or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to make the same judgement in the case of humans who are similarly deficient. But it is not true that such humans — the retarded child,for example, or the mentally deranged — have less inherent value than you or I.Neither, then, can we rationally sustain the view that animals like them in being the experiencing subjects of a life have less inherent value. All who have inherent value have it equally, whether they be human animals or not.

 Animals have equal right to be treated with respect

We must recognize our equal inherent value as individuals, reason — not sentiment, not emotion — reason  compels us to recognize the equal inherent value of these animals and, with this, their equal right to be treated with respect.

Rights Movement Requires Political Activism to Abolish Cruelty To Animals

Giving farm animals more space, more natural environments, more companions does not right the fundamental wrong in their case. Nothing less than the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture will do this...

All great movements, it is written, go through three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption. It is the realization of this third stage, adoption, that requires both our passion and our discipline, our hearts and our heads. The fate of animals is in our hands. God grant we are equal to the task.


In forthcoming Part Two: Mistaken Beliefs of Animal Rights Advocates, I will discuss the inadequacies of animal rights arguments.

Teach kids to love their neighbours: Yes...but it all depends. Must we always love others?

 Teach Kids to love their Neighbors

  Lee Yoke Har  writes:

        Growing up as a kid in Malaysia, you don't learn about racism until an adult decides to poison your innocence and point you to the superiority of your own race.

        Much like the diverse eco-system, humanity is bound in a weird way by likeness and unlikeness. If we tear away the veil of religion and race, we are after all a humanity of nearly seven billion people. Somehow, we have got to learn to show compassion and love for one another.There is so much that is magnificent about its diversity. When I look at the intricate mudras (hand signals) of the bharatanatyam dancers, I often think of beauty, precision and perfection. When the muezzin makes his prayer calls at dawn or dusk, one gets infused with a sense of wonder, of being at home, feeling the vibration of the most sacred. This sense can only come from being raised in an all-embracing multiracial society.

        Teach your kids to love their neighbors, for there is no other way.

On the surface, the general thrust of her essay is reasonable. No one, in his right mind, would encourage hurtful racism or social prejudice. I agree with her on many points. However, some of her conclusions seem to me less obvious.

First, a kid may learn about racism from another kid, perhaps a kid from his neighborhood. Adults are not always to be blamed. Nor are we to assume that children are naive and pure innocence.

Secondly, the eco-system doesn't protect natural differences for the sake of variety. Nature has a prejudice for the survival of the fittest in the Darwinian sense. The species that have the strongest will-to-live and the most cunning ability to adapt to a hostile environment survive and flourish. The weak ones get flushed out of existence. Thus it seems better to teach our kids tough-mindedness and the ability to adapt to a constantly evolving world. It is not enough just to accept differences, we must rise above the mediocrity and become superior. Quality and not quantity of differences.

My third point is this. It is human to be prejudicial in the sense that our thoughts are bound by our presuppositions. When we think we inevitably make some assumptions. No matter how hard we try, we are limited by our mind's horizon.

Let's take the statement: "We are all human beings, therefore we should respect each person."  Behind this statement is the assumption that if a being has humanness, he ought to be respected.

But why? How is it possible to logically leap from being a human to being respected. Having a human body with its emotions does not tell me how it should be treated. Respect is not logical deduction from humanness. There must be other unspoken, hidden reasons. Perhaps religious ones, since science cannot possibly be a source. Then atheists will not hold the deduction valid.

Furthermore. racial prejudice is a perceptual matter. Our perceptions are limited by our finite experiences. If 'science' has only seen white swans, we conclude all swans are white. This is both natural and scientific.

For example. If we encounter a tribal society that we perceive to be backward in some way, we most likely will think our own society as superior.   We cannot pretend that the inferior society is somehow equal to ours. We may help them to improve their life. Our humanitarian actions are applauded, but in fact we do not respect their natural state as being good. It may not be as blatantly cruel as school kids taunts, nonetheless they are similar.

Of course, a racially prejudiced person makes a logical error of assuming he/she has met all instances of  an 'inferior' race. But we can't blame him if he has met a majority that exhibit some backwardness. Every time when he meets a person of the other race, he reflects on his own better society/culture. He may see as an exception to his 'prejudice' when he does meet an 'inferior' who is his equal.

Perhaps, the more important thing to learn from prejudice is to determine the causes of prejudice. Why does a person think his culture is superior to the others?  If he has no valid reasons, then we are entitled to treat him as misguided. If he has good reasons, we must accept his judgment as fair and reasonable. And seek to improve ourselves. So what are the good reasons? How does one judge a society/culture? I'll suggest a few criteria of a superior culture (listed not in order of importance).

a) high regard for personal freedom and privacy (matured citizens)
b) high standard of health and homes
c) true knowledge is prized (quality education for all who are willing to learn)
d) life, assets and wealth protection
e) balanced life and work
f)  culturally stimulating (leisure and creative arts are freely available)
g) technologically advanced
h) freedom to choose one's religious beliefs/ non-belief
i)  'sexuality' equality (non-repressive in Freudian terms)
j)  peaceful (non-violent)
k) high achievement oriented (citizens strive to become better than before)

These criteria form different dimensions of a superior society. Most cultures today fall somewhere along the scales of these criteria. We do not have any perfect superior society yet.

Teach your kids to build such a culture, there is no other way!

Children Learn When Adults Imitate Them

Children Learn When Adults Imitate Them - World of Psychology

The findings, which are published in Social Development, are presented as further evidence that imitation is a type of social influence and preschoolers, like adults, prefer and trust individuals who mirror their behaviors and preferences.

Children did think that the adult mimicking them was more knowledgeable than the others.

Philosophy — What's the Use?

Philosophy — What's the Use?

In addition to defending our basic beliefs against objections, we frequently need to clarify what our basic beliefs mean or logically entail.

So, if I say I would never kill an innocent person, does that mean that I wouldn’t order the bombing of an enemy position if it might kill some civilians? Does a commitment to democratic elections require one to accept a fair election that puts an anti-democratic party into power?  Answering such questions requires careful conceptual distinctions, for example, between direct and indirect results of actions, or between a morality of intrinsically wrong actions and a morality of consequences. Such distinctions are major philosophical topics, of course, and most non-philosophers won’t be in a position to enter into high-level philosophical discussions.

                                         By GARY GUTTING

Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?: Responsible for unintended results?

Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?

In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent, just as in consenting to any activity, one does not consent to yield to all the accidental outcomes that might flow from that activity.

Policies that punish men for accidental pregnancies also punish those children who must manage a lifelong relationship with an absent but legal father. 

These “fathers” are not “dead-beat dads” failing to live up to responsibilities they once took on — they are men who never voluntarily took on the responsibilities of fatherhood with respect to a particular child.

Written by: Laurie Shrage is a professor of philosophy and women’s and gender studies at Florida International University.(New York Times June 12, 2013)

The Myth of 'Just Do It'

The Myth of 'Just Do It'

Improving, especially after you have acquired a high level of skill, typically requires an enormous amount of effort. ...— yet it also involves concentration, thought, deliberation and will power.

The philosophers and psychologists who advocate a just-do-it mentality all admit that during those rare occasions when something goes wrong, performers or athletes need to direct their attention to their actions.

In its “just-do-it” advertising campaign, Nike presumably used the phrase to mean something like, “stop procrastinating, get off your posterior and get the job done.” Interpreted as such, I’m in favor of “just-do-it.”

However, when interpreted as “experts perform best when not thinking about what they are doing,” the idea of just-do-it is a myth.

Avoiding Emotional Exhaustion: Filling Our Emotional Tank

Avoiding Emotional Exhaustion: Filling Our Emotional Tank - World of Psychology


Signs of emotional exhaustion include, but are not limited to:

• low tolerance to stress or stressful situations;
• inattentiveness;
• lack of motivation; and
• physical fatigue.

Let’s face it, when we’re emotionally drained we have little tolerance for anything. So what can be done about it?

It’s often hard to be attentive because we are too tired to care. We lack motivation because we are too tired to do anything. Last, but not least we become physically tired because we have worn ourselves out mentally.
It is important to notice these signs of emotional exhaustion to avoid further interpersonal, work, school, or other problems. It is also important to notice these signs to prevent more physical or emotional dangers.